


Solve for X

by Anonymous



Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-28 05:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13897383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Does he like him? Does he like Yusuke? Does he like him because he is Yusuke? Does he like him because he thinks he's Yusuke? Or does he like both?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Aka after I saw the recent Yusuke P5D trailer I've just been swimming in thoughts. I'm not sure how to tag this because it's not exactly Shukita proper.... I think there will also be p heavy end game spoilers eventually too but I'll put a warning when that happens do not worry!

Even though he’s dressed like the two other attendants in the Velvet Room, shares their unreal eye and hair colour, Akira can’t believe what his eyes tell him.

“That palace ruler said something interesting didn’t he?” Igor drawls. 

Akira jolts back to attention.

_> “Another persona user?”_  
_> “…”_  
_> “Who is that?”_

He should try gathering information on that other wielder.

“Who’s that?” Akira points at the figure standing attentively next to Igor’s desk.

Caroline growls and Justine pinches the bridge of her nose. 

“Pay him no mind,” Justine says softly. 

“He just stands there all tall ‘n stuff and we hate him!” Caroline yells, giving the cell bars a few zaps for good measure. Akira barely avoids being caught in the shock. 

“He joined us after you discovered the last palace. I wonder if you’re responsible for his manifestation?” Igor says, ignoring all the angry posturing of the twins. 

It seems base to talk about the individual when he’s right there not reacting to a thing anyone says. For his own sanity Akira keeps looking at him. The newcomer indeed sports the flaxen blond and gleaming gold eyes only seen in the Velvet Room, but that swooping fringe. 

The wide shoulders and tall skinny physique.

There’s no denying it.

***

Akira wakes up feeling like he’s been up for hours. That’d explain him lucid dreaming himself into the Velvet Room last night.

He snorts. Lucid nightmare more like. 

Just in case he pulls his phone out and shoots Yusuke a message. It’s his day off and he’s got a good idea of what he wants to do.

While getting dressed a ping sounds from his phone on the bed.

_“My dreams were nothing unusual. Did something happen leader? Shall we meet today?”_

Akira frowns at the ‘nothing unusual’ comment. Unusual or not Yusuke will probably talk about it anyway. He taps a message back. 

“Morgana.”

Morgana looks down from the windowsill where he’s stretching his leg.

“I’m gonna hang out with Yusuke today. It’ll probably be boring.” 

Morgana snorts. “More boring than you at school?”

Akira nods, “I’m gonna work at Iwai’s tonight as well.”

Morgana stares at him long and hard. 

Satisfied, he goes back to licking his leg. “No funny business,” he mutters in between strokes. “Don’t you dare come back late either!”

“Same to you,” Akira says keeping his posture prim and batting his lashes. “I can’t imagine what you’ll get up to with me gone.”

“I mean it!” Morgana yowls back.

Yellow eyes and evening curfew on the mind, Akira heads out.

Disembarking at Shibuya station Akira takes a few steps on the platform, just enough to put him out of the push and shove zone. If he goes down these stairs he’ll be at Station Square which is walking distance from central street where the Velvet Room is. If he went down the flight of stairs after that he’d be at the underground walkway where Yusuke waits. 

For once in his life he arrived early to an engagement, very early. For the express purpose of peeking into the Velvet Room actually. Now thinking about it _if_ the Velvet Room newcomer is real and _if_ he’s there Akira won’t be leaving with just a cheeky peek. 

Akira goes down to the underground walkway.

He fords the Sunday crowd, indigo hair serving as a beacon in the distance. Akira can’t help smiling when all of Yusuke comes into view. Yusuke standing outside of Chagall Café is a constant in the chaos of life. 

Yusuke smiles down at him in turn. “So who’s going first?”

“I asked first!”

“Indeed.” Yusuke acquiesces and holds his arm out, “I’ll tell you about it on the train.”

Akira takes his arm, pointedly ignoring all the people around them. Opting to focus on the giddy fluffy sensation floating around in his cheeks and heart.

“You saw me as a prison guard with blond hair and yellow eyes?”

Two empty ramen bowls sit in front of them. Akira’s strategy had been to make sure Yusuke was seated and comfortable when he told him of the Velvet Room doppelganger. Actually his strategy had been to not tell Yusuke at all but it seemed less odd under the guise of a dream.

Given Yusuke’s lack of reaction perhaps Akira had sanitised his story too much. 

“If anything it seems you had the unusual dream.” Yusuke says, thoughtfully stroking his chin.

“Hey.” Akira pouts.

Yusuke stares at him and gives a rich laugh. Presumably at his face which doesn’t do anything for his furiously blushing cheeks already hot from noodle stress. 

“My apologies, I don’t get the opportunity to call others ‘unusual’ often.” 

“Don’t start now.” Akira fires back. 

Fun as hanging out with Yusuke is. How much it fulfils Akira to treat Yusuke to lunch and listen to him go into microscopic detail about their ramen, it doesn’t distract Akira from the questions burning the back of his head.

They come back to Shibuya late that afternoon, the sun basking them in a deep orange. One of the few occasions where it would have suited Akira better if Yusuke disembarked outside of the Shibuya fare zone. 

Benefit or not he couldn’t allow Yusuke to do that on principle.

He waves Yusuke off, walking at a snail’s pace to no place in particular. After a few moments of aimless wandering Akira stops in his tracks.

What does he want? Is he going to find it in the Velvet Room?

Presently, yes. Barring useful information regarding the new attendant he can try to fuse a new persona or something. Lose a few yen. Why not.

A sequel to his morning epiphany hits him. Zoning out in a back alley in Shibuya for a while can get ugly. Fighting off instinctual alarm bells, Akira pulls out his phone and descends into Mementos.

Upon surfacing there’s a door behind him and the glowing blue door to his left. Akira can count the amount of times he’s found the door occupied on one hand. Today the twins happen to be standing outside of it. 

“Back for more inmate?” Caroline whips out her prod. 

Akira glances at them both then steps closer to the door. 

Both of their expressions sour at the move. 

“You’re here for _him_ aren’t you.” Justine says. Her voice typically carried no inflection or perhaps it just sounded that way next to Caroline. This time her voice was dead enough to grate on Akira. 

“Request,” he answers keeping his voice even. 

“Oh?” Caroline raises an eyebrow. “Well let’s see it.”

Next thing Akira knows he’s being kicked through the door. 

To his relief or chagrin the newcomer hasn’t moved from his spot by Igor’s desk. How he holds himself and his expression haven’t changed. He may as well be an ornamental statue, or a guard dog.

Or fox.

As per their agreement Akira sits on the floor and summons the appropriate mask. Jack Frost materialises before the twins with a flap of its arms. 

While the twins hem and haw over the summon a flicker behind them catches his eye. Craning his neck, Akira wonders if his eyes are playing tricks on him. The new attendant is looking at them, brows no longer cutting a line like a knife’s edge. 

“This Jack Frost indeed has mabufu,” Justine says with a serene grin. “Well done inmate.”

“Child’s play.” Caroline spits, “let’s see if you can take on this next one.”

“What’s this?”

A deep voice. A plummeting drop from the twins, smoother than Igor’s rasp, sounds from behind the twins. Akira tilts his head to get a better look and it appears the attendant has joined them.

“I told you to leave us alone!” Caroline snaps and Justine immediately slams the book with the task list shut. “Go sharpen our guillotine or something!”

“I sharpened it and the chainsaw already,” the newcomer pouts. 

Something terrifying flashes across Caroline’s face. The words are out of Akira’s mouth before he knows it.

“Who is he?”

Justine shuts her eyes tight and shakes her head. “Pay him no mind.”

“What’s your name?” Akira tries again, this time facing the third attendant. He probably couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

“My name?” The attendant’s striking yellow eyes grow wide. “Master only said that I’m to help rehabilitate you and that I’m their brother.” He says, gesturing at the twins. 

Akira doesn’t miss the look Justine and Caroline exchange at that last statement. 

Caroline stomps her foot. “Time for your next assignment! Let him have it Justine then he needs to get to work.”

Justine rests her thumbs on the front and back ends of the book but does not open it.

“He’s a prisoner but he can just move as he pleases?” The newcomer asks, crouching to match Caroline and Justine’s height.

Caroline looks away. “W-well he has to do stuff and-“ 

“Unsupervised?” The attendant presses on.

“Who’s gonna watch over him!? We have work here to do unlike you, newbie.” 

Akira winces at the emphasis of that last syllable. Vitriol or not the third attendant brushes it off. 

“I could watch him.” The attendant says simply.

Akira’s jaw drops and he sees the sentiment echoed in Justine’s raised eyebrows and Caroline’s dropped cattle prod.

“He could.” Justine recovers first. 

“Yeah… Make himself useful.” Caroline affirms with a sly grin that sends shivers up Akira’s spine.

“Not today!” Akira blurts out. He affirms that yes, he’s an inmate on the surface. Yes, he will go straight home with no detours. No, he’s not lying he promises. Yes, he’ll come back soon so the new attendant can supervise him on the surface.

Akira can’t get out of the Velvet Room fast enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmmggghhh once again there's no spoilers this is all written w the end game in mind and it might make things clearer i dont know mggghhhh
> 
> (also i dunno if i'm supposed to tag OC aaahhhhh)

The door to his cell doesn’t open apparently, or they don’t want to let him loose in the Velvet Room.

Akira watches as the stranger strolls through the bars into his cell. Phases through them.

“You came back!” The attendant gasps, eyes wide and grip on his clipboard slackening if for a moment. “And you’re wet,” he adds.

Akira stares up at him, air around them still save for the rain drops leisurely falling from his hair. 

“It’s pretty bad out,” Akira says looking the attendant up and down. “Are your clothes going to be okay?”

The attendant’s eyes refocus and he returns to his ramrod straight posture. “Trying to wriggle away from my supervision already? I won’t be fooled so easily inmate.” 

He peers down at Akira and his pupils are tiny. It’s like staring at a shadow or the howling harvest moon. The animal brain voice deep in Akira screams ‘wrong!’ 

“Suit yourself.” Akira sighs.

They step through the door into Shibuya. Prisoner’s garb morphs into school raiment. A ‘fwoomp’ noise sounds next to him punctuated with a click. At his feet is a puddle, above him his new companion has conjured an umbrella. 

Akira looks at him. Gaze locking onto the pale blond fringe obscuring his companion’s eyes. For moment he sees a mop of dark hair and a white shirt framed against the grey sky. For a moment Akira almost _almost_ takes his arm and basks in the feeling of sharing an umbrella.

White light flashing off the wet ground stings his eyes. Hot on its heels comes a groaning thunder that rumbles around them. 

Akira blinks and he sees grey blond hair, cold yellow eyes, and a blue uniform shirt. 

“Let’s go to the station,” Akira says after recovering. “We can still catch the rainy day special.”

The station is close but the walk seems to last ages. Usually he doesn’t make a habit of observing other people’s habits. Double if he doesn’t know them well and probably won’t get to know them well. Triple if they’re Velvet Room hooligans that interrupt his sleep. 

Everything the doppelganger does just steals his attention by virtue of happening.

His legs are long, of course their walking gaits won’t match. The attendant’s walking pattern feels like a direct opposite to his own yet somehow they go at the same speed. Being a near carbon copy of Yusuke the attendant also has some height on him. When Akira looks at him there’s nothing unusual about the way he holds the umbrella. 

Yet the umbrella is around the same height Akira would hold it at and shields him from the rain perfectly. By now he’s on alert for drops against his face or pattering on his bag. 

Typically the rainy day crowd at Yon Germain was enough to pack the station accessway and Akira would have to wait a few a few minutes.

Today there’s only a few people milling about the accessway.

Disturbed but determined Akira orders two katsu buns. Even tries pushing his luck by asking for a third to take home.

They give it to him. ‘Slow day’ they say.

He leads his companion to the accessway and hands him a bun. Akira tells himself it’s because this guy seems really intense about this supervision thing and maybe a bun will help. It’s definitely not because he’s weak to that face, regardless of what expression it makes.

Akira’s a few bites into his bun before he notices the attendant looking between his bun and Akira.

“Don’t like breads?”

The attendant shakes his head. “No. This was unexpected.”

“It’s fun to eat with other people.” And talk, he doesn’t say. 

The attendant examines the bun, slowly turning it around in his gloved hand. 

“Try a little while it’s still warm,” Akira says, taking another bite.

“It’s pretty,” the attendant says in a small voice. 

Akira freezes mid chew. He turns to the look-alike just in time to see him taking a huge bite. 

A thought strikes him while watching Him eat. 

“What should I call you?”

The attendant stares at him like he’s grown a third arm. “I’m a warden and you’re an inmate. It won’t be necessary to become acquainted beyond that.”

Akira raises a brow at the skinny boy leaning against the rail next to him. Gracefully wolfing down a katsu bun. 

There was a plan he had for today, or at least tasks that he saves for rainy days. Unfortunately he blanks on whatever he’d planned before this whole mess with the Yusuke Velvet Room clone. Rainy days were good for fishing, studying, and baths. They could go to the diner. Perhaps if he was boring enough around his chaperone he’d eventually leave him be. 

What if He doesn’t have anything to do in the diner? 

Why’s Akira worried about someone who believed themselves to be his CO? 

He has an answer to that, one that he’s been desperately running away from. The goal he set for today was to figure just who this new Velvet Room member is. It’d be a lie if he said he didn’t foresee it being a little complicated.

So far it seems like his best bet for getting Him to talk about Himself was to inspire some kind existential crisis. Which also seemed more morally dubious than he was willing to act so far.

“Oi!” 

Akira winces, he knew it’d been too quiet for too long. 

Morgana pokes his head out of Akira’s bag. “Yusuke?” 

Checking that the attendant is still occupied, Akira quietly shushes Morgana. “I’ll tell you later.” He whispers. Looking at the attendant Akira feels the beginnings of an idea rattle around his mind.

***

“Did the last Palace awaken a proclivity for the arts?” The attendant says with a chuckle in his voice.

It’s part of a grander scheme, Akira tells himself. Bring the doppelganger to Ueno. 

A voice in his head snorts. ‘And see if he reacts around art? What if he likes it? What if he doesn’t?’

He hadn’t worked out anything after that but his philosophy of ‘crossing that bridge when he got there’ works well enough. It might be backfiring now. 

Heaven knows that Akira only came to Ueno Museum to spend time with Yusuke, which worked because Yusuke did all the talking. 

While the attendant does seem to be interested in his surroundings, the interest doesn’t extend beyond looking at the paintings for minute at most then quietly moving onto the next. If he wants to talk the onus is on Akira. 

Dread washes over him as autopilot takes over moving his legs. There’s readings he needs to do and jobs he needs to apply for. But here he is chasing a lead that might not be anything. 

He knows he keeps looking at Him but it’s jarring to see dream exclusive beings in his reality. Even when he visits the Velvet Room in the alley in front of Untouchable it feels so far removed from everything else. 

“What were you and my sisters doing the other day?”

Akira opens his mouth then pauses. What does he do in the Velvet Room? He’s never had to explain it so he never thought about it. A member of the Velvet Room was different though. 

“Personas,” Akira mumbles waving his hands vaguely. “They just told me to bring them personas with certain abilities.”

The attendant doesn’t look completely lost processing this. “Is it difficult?” 

Akira shakes his head. Pestering Yusuke with a bunch of blank skill cards wasn’t too hard on Akira. Yusuke might be a different case. Either way after a lot of unhelpful input from Akira Yusuke had eventually made a card imbued with mabufu. 

In a first for the day the attendant’s stoic expression cracks. Eyes closed they form happy crescents framed by his long blond lashes, his glowing smile ever more radiant paired with his blond hair. It’s like the sun breaking through rain clouds. 

“That’s amazing,” the attendant gushes. 

Akira feels like he’s being blinded standing right next to the sun. _‘Well of course!’_ he doesn’t say, biting down that cocky streak. Who knew how much he would say to the twins? Then again it’d probably be hilarious to tell the twins he found their tasks easy.

Hilarious at a cost.

“To manipulate the skills of any persona in such a way,” the doppelganger says dreamily. “Is no simple task.”

“Have you tried it?” 

There’s a thought. Everyone in the Velvet Room worked with personas in some compacity but could they wield them? No answer would surprise him at this rate.

“Ah,” the attendant blushes. “I only maintain the tools. Master encouraged me to participate in fusions but…”

The warmth and glow from his astonishment earlier evaporates. Akira watches as He winces. “What do you want to do?” Akira asks.

“My sisters oppose my participation. They said allowing a ‘greenhorn’ like me would reflect badly on the Velvet Room.” He says looking downcast.

Akira wonders just how many fusions the Velvet Room is handling from others. The prospect of other wild cards is unsettling.

The other user Madarame mentioned… He might be, he might be not. Probably not given that Akira doesn’t know anyone else who can wield multiple masks. He still can’t help but wonder.

Would they all use that door in Shibuya in front of Untouchable? Would they all have to deal with Igor and the twins? The Velvet Room always seemed like it transcended dimensions but just maybe…

“But what do you want?” Akira presses.

“I’d like the option to try at least.” The attendant’s wince twists into a wry smile, “I hate being the only vestigial member in the room.”

Akira purses his lips and crosses his arms. “I want you to handle my fusions.”

“You would allow me this?” The attendant gasps.

“Hold up,” Akira raises a hand. “I dunno if Caroline and Justine will listen to me, ‘specially with me being an ‘inmate’ and all.” He swallows. There’s an outcome where he offends the twins badly enough to complicate matters in the Velvet Room. “But we can try.”

***

“Caroline and Justine tell me you’ve taken it upon yourself to supervise the trickster.”

“Yes I have.” The attendant answers simply. It wasn’t often that the master engaged him or his sisters in civil discourse. Had he known the master would be so inclined today he would have prepared a more interesting statement.

“What did you do today?”

The attendant takes a moment as he recalls their day. “We took advantage of promotion in the bakery that only occurs on rainy days. We went to the museum in Ueno after.”

A deep raspy chuckle rumbles from the master. “So typical of humans isn’t it?”

“I beg your pardon?” The attendant turns to look at the master but finds him staring ahead. 

“Even in the face of calamity they cannot free themselves from sloth. Continuing to chase leisure.”

He thinks back to the time spent with the inmate. Was that all there was to him?

He would have to spend more time with the inmate for a proper assessment.


End file.
